Quality Informatics: The Convergence of Healthcare Data, Analytics, and Clinical Excellence

Background and Significance The convergence of electronic health record (EHR) adoption, increased availability of electronic health data, development of analytical techniques, and healthcare payment reform has created an environment ripe for using information technology to improve delivery of healthcare services.[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The lack of unification has manifested itself in EHR systems used by providers, quality measures developed by different groups, and use of quality measures in different ways by different organizations.[ 4 ] The organization and coordination of formal approaches for using health information systems and their data to improve clinical effectiveness is needed. Quality informatics is defined here as the discipline that “uses healthcare data collected from healthcare information systems to improve clinical effectiveness.[ 5 ]” As part of clinical informatics that broadly studies the organization and use of information to improve healthcare delivery,[ 6 ] [ 7 ] quality informatics is rooted in collecting accurate healthcare quality data, analyzing those data, and applying findings toward quality improvement programs ([ Fig. 1 ]). Coordination of this work allows clinicians, analysts, and researchers to unify, align, and share in the work of connecting large-scale data with improvement in healthcare delivery. These efforts complement and contribute to parallel efforts to using EHR data for clinical decision support, research, and public health.[ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] Fig. 1 The work, tools, challenges, and opportunities of quality informatics. This letter outlines why quality informatics should be recognized, provides an overview of the work of quality informatics, and describes the opportunities and challenges facing the work. Electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs), part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Promoting Interoperability EHR Incentive Program, will serve as an exemplar of quality informatics in practice.[ 11 ] Protection of Human and Animal Subjects Human and/or animal subjects were not included in the project.